The musings, opinions, thoughts, and complaints of a political minded Canadian citizen.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Leadership Round-Up

With Thanksgiving out of the way and everyone back in the swing of things, let's take a look at some of the things that have developed since we last posted.

Broten Campaign

Cam has been scoring up endorsements from former MLAs, including the most recent one from Eric Cline (Cam's predecessor), and people as varied as mayors, youth members, and others. The campaign also celebrated the grand opening of their office on the Saturday before Thanksgiving; I was out of town, so I wasn't able to attend and report accurately, but it sounds like it was quite the event.

Cam's also used his role as the NDP Employment Critic to lambast the Sask Party for slashing Aboriginal employment programs and called for a long term growth plan to be put in place.

Meili Campaign

Ryan's campaign has a meet and greet this Thursday in Regina, and they've also fleshed out the campaign website a little more with a closer examination of some of the guiding principles Ryan will be bringing into the campaign. The best thing to do, would be to take a look at it here: LINK (expect analysis and so forth to follow in another post in the future.)

Perhaps the most tongue-in-cheek development of the campaign has been over Ryan's debate over his decision to enter the race whilst having a beard. It's a slightly amusing conversation that's brewed from the race, and one that Ryan has actually embraced and taken up as a sort of torch with regards to challenging what we expect our politicians to be. Who'd have thought that something as simple as a beard would have led to serious campaign discussion?

Weir Campaign

Erin's campaign continues to be hitting fast and hard with the releasing of policy developments; the bulk of which have so far focused on Erin's economic background and stayed within the economic policy sphere. The first policy, which has been covered on this blog, LINK, revolved mostly around closing tax loopholes and 'redefining' small business.

The second announcement, which will be covered in greater detail in a future post, revolves around Saskatchewan's potash development and the closing of loopholes that allow developers to be exempt from paying tax over a certain amount, and calls for continued support of the NDP's last election policy of creating a fund from non-renewable resource revenues.

Wotherspoon Campaign

Trent continues to be the provincial travel leader, hitting Regina, Saskatoon, Prince Albert, Melfort, Melville, Gordon First Nation, and numerous other communities across Saskatchewan. Trent also has a meet and greet tonight (Wednesday) in Regina at the Owl on the UofR campus.

That is more or less the major news from the campaign trail for now; but as more develops, you can expect me to talk about it. As mentioned above, there should be two post in the near future exploring the Weir Campaign's most recent announcement and a more in-depth look at the ideas flowing on the Meili Campaign's website.